Krishan Kant

Krishan Kant, (born Feb. 28, 1927, Kot Mohammad Khan, Punjab, India—died July 27, 2002, New Delhi, India), Indian politician who , devoted his entire life to Indian freedom, social welfare, and civil liberties and rose to become vice president in 1997. Kant, who came from a family of devout followers of Mohandas Gandhi, plunged into active politics while still a student and was imprisoned for his involvement in the anti-British Quit India movement of 1942. He rose in the Congress Party, identifying himself with the socialist group, and was elected to the Rajya Sabha (upper house) in 1966. In 1975 Kant was expelled from the Congress Party for his opposition to the state of emergency declared by then prime minister Indira Gandhi. He joined the Janata Party and in 1977 was elected to the Lok Sabha (lower house). He was appointed governor of Andhra Pradesh in 1990. In early 2002 Kant, whose simplicity and dedication to social work had won him widespread respect, was touted as a possible candidate for president, but he was passed over in favour of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

Click anywhere inside the article to add text or insert superscripts, subscripts, and special characters.
You can also highlight a section and use the tools in this bar to modify existing content:

Add links to related Britannica articles!
You can double-click any word or highlight a word or phrase in the text below and then select an article from the search box.
Or, simply highlight a word or phrase in the article, then enter the article name or term you'd like to link to in the search box below, and select from the list of results.

Note: we do not allow links to external resources in editor.
Please click the Web sites link for this article to add citations for
external Web sites.